Blood and Gold
by Nico Riddle
Summary: Harry accidentally sends himself back in time while doing a blood ritual. Trying to figure out a way to get back, he accidentally catches Voldemort's interest, and little does he know that the man will not willingly let someone so interesting yet frustrating go. NOTE:this story is not abandoned, as of now it has 47k words on AO3 and will be continued there.
1. Chapter 1

Blood and Gold

"Incendio."

With a quiet whisper, the light of several small candles lit up the room, casting long shadows on the stone walls. The dim light revealed a young man walking towards the middle of the room with silent steps. In his hand, he held a broken paintbrush that was dripping dark liquid on his elegant fingers. When he got to the middle of the room he crouched down, observing his handiwork on the stone covered floor. From far away, it seemed like a circle had been painted on the floor but if one took a closer look, it would become immediately obvious why a shy but proud smile was gracing the man's lips.

Runes. Hundreds of them, in fact, interlocking with each other in an intimate, powerful dance. The young man hovered above the runic circle, carefully stepping inside so as not to disrupt the sequence that he had so carefully crafted. He leaned closer to his work and checked if each rune had been properly drawn, not a single tail missing, not a single letter missing. He was aware of how dangerous it was, the ritual that he was attempting to do, but he paid no heed to the warnings. Nonetheless, he knew that even the slightest of mistakes would have the most dire consequences, and for that reason he made sure to recheck his work even more carefully than he would have done so with a normal ritual.

He could feel it even now, even when the ritual hasn't even been started yet. The soft murmur of underlying magic, the power thrumming and dancing around him, Mother Magic caressing his face with her soft touch. He let out a short sigh and closed his eyes for a moment, turning his face upwards and staying motionless for a couple seconds, just existing and savouring the pure magic that surrounded him. The feeling, it was truly addictive. There was no other word to describe it.

It was a sensual dance, the humming vibratio of earthly magic inviting his own for the next imaginary song, cradling each other close as they danced, spinning around the room, filling the space with warmth and wonder. It wasn't supposed to feel like this, Harry knew. It should have felt dangerous and violent, dark and terrifying instead of the oh so sweet seduction.

Taking a deep breath, he opened his eyes again. He stood up and cautiously exited the circle. Walking to the side of the room, he placed his paintbrush a jar of murky dark red liquid.

Blood.

He had been carefully harvesting it, his own blood, for weeks and weeks and placed it carefully under a statis charm in preparation for this. The ritual.

Next to the jar lay a tray with several small bowls on it, each containing different herbs, carefully dried and preserved in their most magically effective state. Harry carefully picked up the tray and made his way back to the runic circle.

Around the circle lay twelve small candles whose dim flames were the only source of light in the room. They were spaced evenly, as if someone had put one on each hour markers on an invisible clock. Harry took the small bowls and placed them by their corresponding candles, within the runic circle. Twelve bowls exactly. Sage, ginger, saffron, and chamomile, the four most important ones, placed at the four opposite sides of the circle.

How ironic, that four so muggle herbs could fuel one of the most powerful dark rituals in existence. Alas, no sense in wasting time on such humorous coincidences. Time was pressing.

Harry walked back to the side of the room and placed the tray back on the floor. Checking that he had his wand and his ritual blade on him, he stepped back inside the runic circle and kneeled down, facing the largest candle which had the saffron next to it. The most expensive spice in the world, signifying that he was willing to pay anything to achieve his goal.

A family.

His heart thrummed just thinking about it. He would finally be able to have his own family. With this ritual that he had designed, he would be able to find the person he was destined to be with, a person who would support him, stand by him no matter what, and by whose side he would be able to stand in return.

His magic perked up at his thoughts, entering into a much quicker, more complicated dance with the surrounding natural magic. As if it was whistling wind, it caressed his face and blew his messy hair in thousands of different directions. Harry, however, didn't care. He felt it.

It was time.

He picked up his intricately carved dagger and softly pressed the sharp edge against the vulnerable skin of his left forearm. The one closest to his heart. He only applied a small amount of pressure, yet the dagger cut his arm deeply, collecting blood in its duct as it started pouring out from the wound.

Harry started chanting. Words of a long-forgotten language rolled off his tongue with careful precision as he dripped drops of his blood carefully into the bowls of herbs. One. Two. Three. Each bowl, three drops. The chanting didn't stop.

The magic around him sped up, pulsating in perfect rhythm with his ever-fastening heartbeat. Harry could feel it, wrapping around him in a comfortable cocoon, making feel more alive than he had ever felt before.

Safe. Powerful. Loved.

The feelings surged through him unexpectedly, as if a dam had been burst. It was glorious, and Harry could feel a tear escaping his eyes in his joy.

The magic around him built and evolved until it was so powerful you could see physical manifestations of it. It sparkled and shone in brilliant blue, poison green and luminous pink, as if some kind of aurora borealis was surrounding him. Harry looked around in wonder, stopping his chanting for a moment to appreciate the rare sight.

He picked up the chanting again a couple seconds later, repeating the well memorised words that he had rehearsed so many times before. He could feel the magic building up in the air, the colours turning brighter as they caressed each other in gentle waves, intertwining and separating to then be joined again.

Harry closed his eyes to avoid being distracted by the gorgeous manifestation of magic that was growing brighter and stronger at each passing second. Maybe that was why he hadn't noticed that something was wrong. He was feeling a pull, a caress from somewhere far away that was affecting his magic, yet he was too lost in the words to notice.

As his chanting soon came to end, the colours around him brightened to a blinding level and intertwined with each other so much that the individual colours couldn't be observed anymore. Harry felt it then, the sweet tug on his soul that wasn't supposed to be there. He cherished the feeling of magic surrounding him so closely and so powerfully, before he realised that something that should not be happening was going on.

He only had the briefest of seconds to panic as fear flooded his body, snapping his eyes open, he took one last glance at his surroundings before his world went black.

1950

When Harry started to regain his consciousness, he let out a growl as he pressed his hand against his pounding skull.

"Ey lad, y'alright?" he heard someone say. He struggled to open his eyes as the splitting headache got marginally worse, but he fought through the pain. When his eyes finally opened, he looked around in confusion.

He was laying on the ground. It looked like he was out in a street, but it was somehow different than what he was used to. People were running around him in frenzy and he could see a lot of panicked faces. He noticed someone standing above him and he let out a pained gasp as he tried to turn his head to take a closer look. The figure crouched down next to him and lifted a hand to Harry's temples in concern. It was a man with broad shoulders and a strong build, he was sporting a well-kept, ashy coloured beard, his couple inches long hair dangled loosely in front of his eyes. He looked kind, laughter lines creasing his eyes and forehead even when he was looking at Harry in concern. He drew his hand back from Harry's temples and took a sharp breath when he noticed the blood staining the tips of his fingers.

The background noise suddenly started getting louder and louder instead of a quiet hum, and Harry realised there were people shouting around him, sirens blaring, wind howling. He tried to look around again to figure out what had happened, but he was yet again unsuccessful as the pounding in his head got stronger with each movement. His attention turned back to the man again as he heard the words addressed to him.

"The blast took you quite bad, eh? Must've hit'ya head when ya fell," the man said.

"What happened?" Harry asked, still not processing the world around him.

"Gas explosion," came the gruff reply. "Come on, let's getcha to a medic." With that, the man stretched out a hand for Harry to take. Harry placed his hand in the man's outstretched one and he felt a gentle pull as the man hauled him up, stabilising him by the shoulder when his knees buckled beneath him. The man put a supporting arm around his shoulder as he guided Harry off the street and to a woman dressed in what looked like an old nurse's uniform.

Harry took the opportunity to look around the street. He noticed what he hadn't before: the flaming building behind him that he hadn't seen. Firefighters struggled to contain the flames as the house kept burning, but Harry paid no attention to that. He stared, the street looked somehow off.

It all looked… Wrong.

He was distracted by the nurse hurrying to him.

"What happened to him, sir?" she asked the man that was still holding Harry upright.

"Lad prolly hit his head inda blast," the man replied. Harry let out an undignified sound. He was there, damn it, they didn't have to talk about him like he wasn't.

"Come on, let's get you checked out," she said, taking him from the man who took one last look at him and left, probably going back to the site of the blast to look for more injured people.

The nurse spent a couple minutes checking his vitals and his eyes, casting worried looks at him as she did so.

"It is probably a concussion," she concluded. "I will have to take you to the hospital. It is a serious injury that must not be taken lightly, you will need to spend the night under supervision," she addressed him.

Harry, still being quite out of it, let out the sound of protest but the nurse was not having it, she made him sit in the back of a large white van. It looked as if it was a seriously out of date ambulance, but Harry, still bearing a splitting headache from the blast, couldn't make sense of it.

He blinked around in confusion, still unsure of what had happened. He tried to figure out, maybe it was a mistake in the runic circle? No, it cannot be. He had checked and rechecked his work numerous times, he made sure that no mistakes had been made. Maybe it was the incantation that was wrong? He didn't think so he had painstakingly slowly translated it. However, it was still more likely than a mistake with the runes. Runes were, after all, his speciality. He let his thoughts run wild, remembering every single miniscule detail of the ritual, replaying it over and over in his head.

Harry didn't notice how much he had lost track of time until the nurse came back with another patient and addressed them both, telling them that they would be going to the hospital to get checked out properly. Even that couldn't stop Harry's brain from running top speed, still trying to make sense of the situation.

He had no idea what to do, where he was, what happened.

"Where are we?" he asked as the door of the ambulance was closed.

"South London," the other patient replied. It was a woman who looked like she was in her forties, cradling her arm to her chest. "We'll be going to the nearest hospital."

Harry nodded and with a quiet thanks he drew back to himself.

Throughout the ride to the hospital his thoughts were running wild but failing to find answers to his unending list of questions. When he was transferred to a hospital bed and given a painkiller, he let the hospital staff guide him, barely giving any answers to their questions.

No, he didn't know what happened. No, he didn't have any family to notify. His name was Harry. He didn't know what he was doing there before the blast.

Thankfully, it was a busy afternoon so the hospital staff had better things to do than to harass him with more questions. In order to try to distract his own mind from his own million questions, Harry asked for the newspaper. After all, it never hurt to get caught up with the muggle world, did it? Especially because now it looked like he would be spending at least the night at the hospital.

A young nurse complied with his request and handed him the day's newspaper, or so she said.

He took a look at the top of the newspaper and froze.

No.

That was absolutely not possible.

No no no no no.

Harry took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He counted to three and hoped that he saw it wrong. He wished with everything he had that when he opened his eyes again, he would see something different. That he would see November 12, 2003. Today's date.

He slowly opened his eyes again and glanced at the top of the front page.

It hadn't changed.

The words stood out in black ink against the pale milky white paper. Glaring at him, mocking him somehow. He ran his fingertips over it, just to make sure the words were really there. And they were, bright and clear:

March 15, 1950.


	2. Chapter 2

Blood and Gold

The old, half-broken window creaked as Harry slowly opened it. He let winced at the sound that seemed abnormally loud in the otherwise silent room, and looked back to the open door of his hospital room to make sure that the nurses that were running around the corridor hadn't heard it. He had to get out of the hospital, but that would become quite difficult if he were to be placed under constant supervision after an attempted escape.

Harry knew he couldn't stay though. He had nothing on him, no identification, no money, and his clothes would have barely passed as muggle in his own time, not to mention fifty years in the past.

He winced as he was reminded of that small fact again.

He had somehow seriously messed up that ritual and as of yet, he had zero idea what his mistake had been. However, he knew that with enough time, he would be able to figure it out. He would make sure to go over and over every miniscule detail of what he had done to find a way to reverse it. After all, he had no wish to stay in this time. Before the wizarding wars, before all the deaths and destruction.

Morally, he knew that he could quite possibly try to change what had happened, but he had been lectured enough about the effects of temporal imbalance to know that he should try to avoid changing the future at all costs.

So what Harry currently needed, was a place to stay where he could safely research without crossing paths with anyone.

At first, he thought about staying at the Leaky Cauldron, but he remembered that he had no money with him so either he would need to find a job to pay for it, or he would have to think of something else.

That is how he got to his current predicament of trying to sneak out of the hospital unnoticed.

He had pretended to be asleep when the nurse came to check up on him, and he knew that they wouldn't come to his room again for another two hours, give or take. That would give him enough time to get away.

Harry made sure that the window wouldn't creak again as he opened it wide, and climbed up to the window sill. He looked down and noted that thankfully he was only on the first floor, therefore the drop wouldn't be hazardous for him.

It was raining outside, and Harry took a couple moments to listen to the soft ambient noise of the droplets hitting the ground. It was extremely relaxing, and helped him distract his mind from his current distress for a short amount of time. He knew, however, that he could not allow himself to become distracted by the sudden calmness that overtook him. He had hospital to get out of.

He carefully climbed over the window sill and turned over so that he was only supporting himself on his upper body and forearms. He carefully lowered himself as much as he could, until only his hands were holding tightly onto the frail wood. He let go soon after, and landed on the wet grass with a quiet thump.

Grinning to himself for a bit, happy that he was finally out of that place, he looked around. It was dark outside since it was quite late into the night, and the only sound that he could hear was the white noise of the rainfall. There was nobody out. Which of course was undeniably helpful for his current situation as he had no wish for the police to be called on him for his extremely unusual state of dress, his quite obvious head injury, and his general state of actually looking nothing like the muggles of the time. Of course, any altercation with the police had to be avoided for the sole reason that he had absolutely no idea what events had been going on in the recent past, and what the social etiquette was like in this era.

Deciding to quit worrying about the what-ifs, Harry took out his wand and cast a quick rain-repellent on himself and took off in a slow jog. He wanted to get away from the hospital as soon as possible, just in case the nurses had come to check up on him earlier than he had anticipated and found him missing.

After a while his lungs started screaming at him, aggressively reminding him how out of shape his cardiovascular health was. Harry deemed it time to stop running and slowed down to a casual walking pace.

He cancelled the rain-repellent and let the water freely fall on him. His hair quickly became drenched in water and it started running down his face. He walked in the dark, only some few and far between streetlights lighting up his path.

Not caring about the weather, he strolled the silent streets. It was so different than what he was used to, back in his time. While some of the houses weren't too different, the overall feeling that he got from his surroundings was certainly different. There was tension, yes, but also some relief. He passed by numerous construction sites and was reminded that the muggle world was still recovering from the world wars and their aftermath, rebuilding the streets and their lives.

Focusing on his surroundings rather than this situation that he was stuck in helped ease his panic and distress quite a bit, but he knew that he could not run from his problems forever.

Harry let his thoughts run wild.

He kept running all of his possibilities through his mind.

Where could he go? How could he get money? How to research his ritual? Where to research it?

His list of questions was unending, and he struggled to find answers to them.

He had decided that Gringott's was probably the best chance that he had in figuring something out for himself. He was sure that for the right price, the goblins wouldn't hesitate to aid him in trying to find a solution for his current problem.

Walking through the dark streets of London, Harry roughly navigated from the few and far between street names that he recognised. It took him some time, he guessed a couple hours, until he found the street that the Leaky Cauldron resided on. The pub itself wouldn't open until around six or so, but Harry knew that Gringotts was open at every hour of the day.

He hoped that by now he was close enough to a magically dense area that an apparation wouldn't alert the Ministry's sensors of an illegal apparation, since technically he had not passed his exam in this time, thus he could get in a bit of a pickle with the aurors if he were to be found out. Closing his eyes and hoping that he would get away with it without ticking off the Ministry's surveillance, Harry apparated to Diagon Alley.

Slowly opening his eyes, Harry looked at the street in front of him. Even in its empty, dimly lit state, it brought back so many memories that made his heart clench. All the shops that weren't there yet, like George's shop or Neville's café. He saw store names that he didn't recognise. It made him quite upset, knowing that many of these stores would close because of bankruptcy caused by the general fear to go out, never mind go shopping, that spread through society during the wars.

Harry shook his head in an attempt to rid himself of the depressing thoughts.

Not being distracted by heartbreaks of the past and the future, Harry noticed what had evaded his attention before; the magic.

The glorious magic surrounding him, thrumming with joy and welcoming him as an old friend. The ambient, natural magic of the Alley reached out to him and caressed his own magic with her touches, replenishing her own powers by doing so.

Harry knew that this is how the defences around the Alley were kept up; the wards naturally replenished themselves from the magic of the witches and wizards that frequented the streets, but it still felt strange to actually feel the wards siphoning off tiny bits of his magic to strengthen themselves.

He hadn't felt it yet, the last time he had gone to the Alley. It had been before he had dived deeper into the studies of blood runes, which had fine-tuned his magic to feel the various magical energies surrounding him. This was the first time that he had actually felt it happening, and it was quite awe-inspiring, just as much as it was a foreign sensation.

After a couple minutes, the magic drew back and Harry was left feeling strangely empty, for some reason. Not particularly worried about it however, he made his way to the enormous white building that was the wizarding bank.

It was the only building that looked exactly like the one in his own time. The other buildings that lined the streets of the Alley had all been destroyed and rebuilt at one point during the wars, but not Gringotts. It was actually quite refreshing, looking at it.

Harry had always liked the building. It was delicately designed, beautifully carved and crafted, truly a pleasure to look upon. But what amazed him now, were the wards. He had never felt them so strongly before. His knees actually shook a tiny bit at the power that was radiating from the fort. Reluctantly tearing away himself from basking in it, Harry slowly walked inside.

There was only a single goblin in the front hall of the bank, sitting at one of the front desks a bit further backwards down the hall. There were no wizards in sight, as it was quite rare for them to conduct their financial business just shy of four in the morning. The goblin looked busy, weighing various precious stones from the mountain of colourful rocks in front of him. Harry walked to his desk and stopped a couple steps in front of it, politely waiting for the goblin's attention.

He waited some time as the goblin ignored him, but soon after he was done weighing the stones, he looked up at the wizard in front of him.

"Yes?" he asked in a bored tone.

"Good morning," Harry replied with a bow of his head in respect to the creature in front of him. The goblin raised an expectant eyebrow at him, clearly signalling him to hurry up. "I am in major need of assistance, may I speak to your branch leader, or a manager?" he inquired, trying not to offend the goblin by implying incompetence for not being able to help him.

"What is it that you are in such a desperate need of assistance with, wizard?" the teller sneered at him "I am sure certain that my skill will be enough for whatever you may need them for, or are you implying that they are not?"

Trying to minimise the goblin's irritation at him, Harry quickly answered him.

"That is not the case, master goblin, however, the nature of my problem requires handling some… more intricate information, and for this reason I am not certain that the entrance hall would be the best place to discuss it. I would not like to be so bold to ask you to leave your current tasks unattended by requesting you to handle my services," he told the goblin.

"Very well, wizard, but you better have a really good reason for disturbing master Greyclaw in his work," came the reply as the goblin pressed a sort of button on the table. "Master Greyclaw shall be here shortly," he stated, and went back to his duties, including the most important one of absolutely ignoring the wizard standing in front of him.

After thanking the goblin, Harry stood there awkwardly waiting for some time before a door opened at the back of the hall, revealing a well-aged goblin looking at him expectantly. Harry bowed his head to the newcomer as well, and walked up to him.

"Good morning, master Greyclaw," he greeted the goblin with respect, and got a deep stare in return. A couple seconds later the goblin was apparently satisfied with what he saw as he turned around and motioned Harry to follow him.

"Come," Greyclaw stated. "We shall go to my office and you can tell me your business there."

Harry understood the underlying subscript and stayed quiet on their walk. It didn't take long for them to reach master Greyclaw's office but Harry still lost count of all the turns that they had made. He was quite sure that that was one of the goblins' major defense tactics, since the bank's corridors were a giant labyrinth where a normal wizard would have enormous troubles navigating without help from one of the goblins.

As soon as they arrived to the office, the goblin motioned Harry to sit down in the chair in front of the large desk, as he took a seat in the giant chair behind it.

The office was not too big, the desk in the middle took up the majority of the place in the room but it didn't have a crammed feeling to it. All of the walls were lined with bookshelves filled with various scriptures and books from all eras, and the room was lit by the light of a fire in a fireplace on one side of the room, and a torch extending from the bookshelf on the other wall. It had a cosy feeling to it.

"Now tell me, wizard, the reason you have requested my assistance," demanded the goblin impatiently.

Harry took a deep breath and took a second to collect his thoughts. He had decided that the only way the goblins would be able to help him was if they knew the whole truth, so that is what he would tell them.

"I made a mistake in a ritual I did, and accidentally came back in time," he started slowly, "from 2003."

He waited for the goblin's reaction which was no more than a raised eyebrow and a gesture urging him to elaborate.

"It was a blood ritual," Harry told the goblin hesitantly and got a snort, an eye roll and a muttered 'stupid wizards' in return. "It was supposed to help me find the person I was most compatible with, but instead it threw me out on the streets of London, fifty-three years earlier."

Harry opened his mouth to tell more but the goblin stopped him. Harry watched the creature open a drawer of his giant desk, take out several feet's worth of parchment, a quill and an inkwell.

"Write," the goblin instructed. "Every miniscule detail of the ritual that you did, no matter how insignificant it may be, write them down. All the potions, herbs, runes, incantations and other materials, the want movements, everything. I want them all written down," came the strict order.

Harry looked questioningly at the goblin but received no further elaboration.

"Now," bit out the creature, and opened up a book to read.

Harry got the impression that the goblin would not speak another word to him unless he did as instructed, so he started writing. The details were still fresh in mind so they came back to him easily, and as he started noting them down even more flooded his mind. So much, in fact, that he started running out of parchment. Without him having to say a word about that though, the goblin silently provided him with more sheets.

Completely losing track of time, Harry took his time scribbling down everything. When he was done, he collected all the sheets of parchment in order and handed them to the goblin. However, Greyclaw just shook his head, refusing to take the parchment.

"Those are not for me, they are for you. The earlier you write them down, the less likely you are to forget a detail that might be important," the creature told Harry. "Keep them. They will be helpful later."

"Oh," came Harry's mildly illiterate reply. He had not expected that, he had thought that the goblin wanted the details to look over the ritual himself. Of course not, that would be too easy.

"Now, I assume you need a place to stay, and for that you need to have money. That is why you are here, no?"

Harry hadn't expected the goblin to ask it so straightforward so the question caught him off-guard.

"Yes… I think," he replied, earning another eye roll from Grewclaw.

"Alright, wizard. Tell me, what does Gringotts bank receive in return for our services? You obviously have no gold, since if you had, you most certainly would not be here," Greyclaw demanded to know.

Harry thought for a moment. The goblin was right, he didn't have much to offer. He had no money, no status in this time. What could he offer... He knew that the goblin nation valued gold above all else. Of which he had none, so that was a dead end. Sources of gold, however…

"I can tell you the scores of all major quidditch games for the next 50 years, both national and international leagues," he exclaimed triumphantly. He knew that Gringotts was one of the major betting centres for the wizarding world, so he could only imagine how much money they would be able to make off of this information. Probably quite a lot, since there were more than a couple games with extremely surprising outcomes. Who knew that one could benefit so much from reading Quidditch Through Ages front to cover more times than in was possible to count.

Greyclaw hummed at his offer.

"That is a start, wizard, but it is far from enough. Gringotts cannot give you a new identity for only that much information," he stated in mild amusement.

"New identity? Why would I need that?" Harry asked in confusion. After all, he definitely wasn't planning on staying here long-term, only until he figures out what he messed up with the ritual, and how to reverse it. That shouldn't take more than a couple months, give or take. He did not need a whole new identity for that short amount of time.

"You do need it, wizard," Greyclaw said in a somewhat condescending manner. "For one, you need an identity to open a vault in the bank and either rent or buy a house. You also need one in case anything unexpected happens that results in you having to identify yourself. In addition, you may as well have no idea how much time it will take you to reverse-engineer your ritual. You will need an identity if you want to do a mastery, which will allow you to access more information on, how should I say, less legal means of doing various rituals."

Harry had to admit, the goblin definitely had a point. Anyone with a mastery in a subject had access to more not-so-legal material, mostly for research purposes. He would likely need that, if he can't figure out his mistake from the knowledge that he already had, which was quite versatile and broad, but it certainly wasn't everything there was to know about blood runes.

Bloody hell, he would have to do his mastery in runes all over again.

However, since in this time he had no OWL or NEWT results either….

Harry let out a loud groan.

Damn it, he would have to redo all of his exams again if he wanted to be able to properly research. Imagine how much time that would take! Even in his time, he had been the youngest to ever complete a mastery in runes, and it took him almost six years to complete it. For most people it took around ten years to fully earn a mastery in the subject.

He simply did not have that much time.

Harry's mind was running on top speed, trying to figure out all of his options. He couldn't come up with a better one.

Greyclaw was right… He needed a new identity.

And he needed to pay the goblins somehow.

Continuing his train of thought on how he could possibly acquire enough gold the goblins would be satisfied with, he came up with an idea.

"I can also tell you which companies to invest in and with ones to avoid at all costs possible. In the next thirty years more than half of the wizarding businesses will go bankrupt. I can tell you which ones. I can also tell you which ones will become extremely profitable," he offered.

The goblin seemed actually interested in his offer. If it was possible, Harry would say that Greyclaw's eyes started shining brighter at the prospect of so much gold.

"Alright, wizard. Your offer is accepted," Greyclaw exclaimed, dare Harry say, happily. He took out a parchment from his desk, and a knife. The parchment, however, was quite different from the ones that he had given Harry previously. It was more of a greyish colour and golden hairlines covered the entire surface. Harry looked at him in curiosity as he had never seen such thing before. "This is a heredity parchment," the goblin stated. "You will need to drop a couple droplets of blood on it and it will reveal your family tree."

The parchment was placed in front of Harry, as was the knife. He only accepted the parchment though. He had learnt, quite early on in his career as a rune master, just how much power blood holds, and he had absolutely no intention of letting the goblins come in possession of even a single drop of it.

He took his own ritual dagger out of its holster by his waist, and punctured his thumb so that a couple drops of blood could fall on the parchment.

For a while, nothing happened, but around a minute later, a slow script started forming on the page.

"This will take a while," Greyclaw told him. "Until then, you can write down all the information that you have on the quidditch games and the investments," with that, Greyclaw took the heredity parchment from him and handed him sheets of regular parchment.

Not one to go back on his word, Harry started writing.

He listed every single quidditch game he remembered, sorted by closest date to the ones furthest into the future, he wrote down all the scores, who the player who caught the snitch, the scores that the teams won, everything.

After he was finished, he moved on to the businesses. He listed all the successful businesses that he knew of, and when he realised he didn't know much of the businesses that would fail, he asked Greyclaw for help. The goblin was more than happy to list the names of all the shops in Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade and a couple others that operated elsewhere, and Harry wrote down whether they existed in the future or not.

Of course, it was definitely not fool proof since businesses could be sold, merged, renamed, there could be numerous reasons why he wouldn't recognise the names from the future, but this was the best that Harry had, and for some strange reason, Greyclaw was satisfied with it.

After he'd finished scribbling down everything, Harry's hand was aching from writing so much. Finally though, the heredity parchment was ready.

Harry gingerly took it in his hands, as if afraid that it would break. He took a careful look at it.

The parchment, from top to bottom, was covered in a spidery script of various colours.

It didn't show more of his family tree than his great-grandparents on both sides of his family, but that was already more than he had known before.

In the first row stood, dark and glaring against the soft background colour of the parchment, his own name. Then it continued further.

Harry James Potter (unknown – )

James Charlus Potter (unknown – unknown) – father

Lily Rose Potter née Evans (unknown – unknown) – mother

Fleamont Potter (1885 – unknown) – paternal grandfather

Euphemia Potter née Bellamonte (1890 – unknown) – paternal grandmother

Jonathan Evans (1931 – unknown) – maternal grandfather

Rose Dahlia Evans née Evermore (1935 – unknown) – maternal grandmother

Henry Charlus Potter (1853 – unknown) – paternal great grandfather

Anastasia Aurora Potter née Greengrass (1865 – 1944) – paternal great grandmother

Pietro Luca Bellamonte (1862 – 1905) – paternal great grandfather

Emma Lucy Bellamonte née Bones (1869 – unknown) – paternal great grandmother

Charles Evans (1890 – 1942) – maternal great grandfather

Dorothy Evans née Riemann (1900 – 1949) – maternal great grandmother

Jonas Evermore (1902 – unknown) – maternal great grandfather

Yacyntha Evermore née Frost (1907-1935) – maternal great grandmother

Related Old families:

Close relation: Bones, Frost, Greengrass, Bellamonte, Potter

Distant relation: Black, Diggory, Fawley, Lestrange, Lovegood, McLaggen, Peverell

Harry struggled to take in all the information. All of his grandparents were alive! Of course they were, since his parents haven't been born yet, but still. He hadn't thought about that. And his great grandparents… He hadn't even known their names, and now three of them were alive still.

His chest tightened as he came closer and closer to crying as grief overtook him. He held back though, not wanting to embarrass himself in front of the goblin like that. Still, the parchment provided a lot of new knowledge for him and he knew it would take some time for him to accept that even though so many of them were alive right now, he could absolutely not meet them and get to know them. Who knows, after all, how that would affect the future. Maybe he could do something that would result in him preventing his own birth.

Well, with his luck…

"What do the colours mean?" he turned to ask Greyclaw.

He had noticed before, of course, that various names were written in different colours.

His own name, his parents' and everyone's in his dad's side was written in a bright blue colour, most of the names on his mum's side were dark red, and there was one name, Yacyntha Evermore, whose name was written in pale green.

"Blue means witch or wizard. Green means squib, and red means muggle," Greyclaw explained. He no longer looked bored, in fact he looked quite interested as he read through the list as well. "Harry Potter, huh?" he muttered to himself.

"What do we do now?" Harry looked at the goblin questioningly.

"Well, now we start crafting your new identity," came the reply. "We need to decide which family name you want to take on. You cannot keep Potter, of course. That would raise too many questions. Looking at the paternal line, it looks like all the families you are closely related to still have living heirs, so you should not take those names either. It is convenient, however, that your maternal great grandmother was a squib. I remember her, of course. It was quite the scandal, that the sole heir of the Frost family turned out to be a squib. They cast her out, of course, but died in a potion accident before they could sire another one," the goblin told him.

Despite its not particularly happy outcome, Harry was glad to listen to the story since it meant he got to know more about his family.

"Do you know what happened to her?" Harry asked, hoping to hear more of her.

"I do not know for certain, but judging by her death date and your grandmother's birth date, I assume she died of childbirth," Greyclaw stated uncaringly. "The frost family have no more living relatives. They have two vaults in Gringotts, the family vault has a sizable amount of money in it. Not enough to last more than perhaps five to six years, if you choose not to work, but it's something to start with. The family also owns a townhouse in central London and a cottage in the country," Greyclaw shared the new information with him surprisingly eagerly. "I assume you are willing to take on the name Frost?" he looked at Harry with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes," mumbled Harry, his brain failing to process all of this new information.

"Great. Please choose a first name you would like to bear from now on, and afterwards I can proceed to create all the necessary documents."

Harry thought about it for a moment. Honestly, he would rather stick to Harry, but he knew that it probably wouldn't be the best idea. Still, he didn't want to change it too much since it also would not do him any good to choose a name that he would have trouble responding to. So, preferably something close to Harry. He took a look at his family tree again and his eyes caught one of the names.

It was perfect.

"Henry," he told the goblin. "Henry Frost."

His voice must have sounded firmer than he'd realised because the goblin looked at him in surprise.

"Middle name?"

"What was the name of Yacyntha's father? I can claim to be her illegitimate child. I think the dates would line up perfectly as well," he said, jotting down some quick calculations on a spare piece of parchment in front of him. "If we calculate my birthday in this time from the day I did the ritual back home, my birthday would come out as 1st December, 1929. She would have been 19 then. Single, with an illegitimate child, there is no way that she would have kept it. She would have become an absolute social outcast everywhere. I think we can use that as a backstory," Harry said, excitedly.

"I see you are getting a hang of it, wizard," Greyclaw said with a smirk. "The father's name was Marcus. Henry Marcus Frost. That would work," he stated. "Alright, wizard. It is now time for the paperwork. Afterwards, we shall go to the Frost family vault to retrieve the Frost family signet ring, and I assume you want some gold as well," the goblin told Harry, or rather, Henry, who nodded. "Alright. What would your date of birth be in this time?"

"First of December, 1926," Henry replied.

"Mother's name Yacyntha Frost, father's name left blank," Greyclaw muttered to himself then stood up. "Well, I have all the information that I need for now so I shall go and acquire your birth certificate. You can stay here but do not touch anything," he ordered.

The goblin quickly left his office and Henry was left to his own devices. He had not noticed it before but now it crashed down on him, just how terribly tired he was as he fought to keep his eyes open. He had had a long day, after all, he had probably been awake for more than 25 hours, quite possibly even 30, depending on what time of the day it was by then. Henry had completely lost track of the time while he had been down underground in the bank. He didn't know how goblins could do it.

Well, they were probably quite used to it by now, he assumed. They had been living in here for centuries, after all, rarely stepping a foot outside of the premises.

What a sad existence, Henry thought.

He didn't notice that his eyelids finally grew so heavy that he couldn't keep them open, and he feel into the hands of the sandman.

Henry was shaken awake by firm hands some time later and he blinked owlishly at who it might be. Maybe Hermione? Or quite possibly Luna. None of the others usually came to visit him after he'd done one of his rituals.

The ritual…

He was instantly alert as he remembered the events that had only happened less than an hour ago.

"Come on wizard, I don't have the whole day," came the grumpy nudging from Greyclaw.

Henry sat up straight in the chair that he had fallen asleep in, blinking away the last wisps of drowsiness from his eyes.

"Here is your new birth certificate," the goblin handed him a piece of parchment that looked very official. Henry ran his fingers through the surface. It felt quite firm, much more durable than regular parchment. It looked really nice, actually. The parchment held his new birth information on it, and it all felt so surreal as Henry read it all again. "Congratulations on your birth, wizard," Greyclaw told him in a humorous voice. Who knew goblins had a sense of humour. Not a good one, but still.

"Thank you, I guess," Henry replied hesitantly.

"Come on, we need to go ti your family vault and then I want you out of my sight for the foreseeable future."

Henry obeyed Greyclaw's order as he got up. They made their way to one of the carts that lead down to the lower levels of the bank, where the vaults could be found. For the first time in a long time Henry found the cart ride to be extremely unpleasant but thankfully it was over soon. The goblin opened the Frost vault and Harry took a look around.

In the middle there was a large table with only a couple artefacts on it, Henry assumed these were seemed most important to the family. The sides of the rooms were adorned by floor to ceiling shelves packed full of neat stacks of coins. There were other items scattered around as well, like sculptures, paintings, swords and the like, but Henry paid no attention to them.

He walked to the table in the middle and took a look at the objects he found there. One of them was a palm sized box which Greyclaw gestured him to take.

Henry opened the box and found the Frost signet ring laying inside. The ring itself wasn't particularly fancy, it looked like a regular signet ring with an intricately engraved F in the middle to act as a wax stamp on official correspondence. Harry put the ring on the pointer finger of his left hand, just like he'd seen numerous wizards wear them.

After that, he picked up a pouch that was also on the table and went to the walls. He took a couple handfuls of galleons and sickles, and filled the pouch to the brim. There must have been a featherlight charm on it since it felt no heavier than before.

"You should leave your birth certificate here, you definitely do not want to lose it," the goblin advised him. Henry took the advice and placed the parchment on the table, next to the signet ring's box. When he was done, he turned back to face the goblin. "It appears that we are done here," Greyclaw said and opened the vault door again, letting Henry leave first.

They both got into the cart and it took them to the ground level of the bank, and Greyclaw lead Henry to the entrance hall, which was bustling with wizards and witches conducting their business. It appeared that more time had passed than Henry had originally anticipated.

"It was a pleasure working with you, master Greyclaw," Henry stated, bowing his head to the goblin.

"You as well, Lord Frost," the goblin replied, surprising Henry. However, before he could ask what the creature had meant, the door was closed behind him and Greyclaw was nowhere to be found.

Henry suppressed a yawn and decided to ask for an explanation on that at a later date. His brain would not be able to process any more information anyways, he desperately needed sleep.

Trying to avoid contact with everyone, he quickly walked out of the bank and through the busy main street of Diagon Alley. When he successfully made his way to the Leaky Cauldron, he let out a sigh of relief. He couldn't spot the bartender-receptionist at first glance so he stood by the bar.

"'lo, 'ow can I 'elp?" asked someone from behind him.

Not having enough energy to properly take a look around him, Henry bit out "Room for the night, please."

"'Aight, lad. Anything else? Food?" the barman asked and Henry realised how absolutely famished he was.

"Yes, please. Can you take it up to my room?" he asked.

"Of course, don' worry 'bout it," came the reply along with a key to a room.

Without waiting for anything else, Henry stumbled up the stairs, opened the door and carefully locked it behind him, and fell face first on the bed, falling asleep immediately, without sparing any thought to his current troubles.


	3. Chapter 3

Blood and Gold

Henry regained his consciousness quite groggily. The sun was shining through the window, glaring brightly in his face. It was wrong, his bedroom was facing westwards, so the morning sun never bothered him. The bed also didn't feel like his own. He squinted as he tried to open his eyes to figure out where he was. When he saw the bare walls of the room, it all came back to him.

Oh.

So, it hadn't been some weird dream that his messed up mind had come up with. He was at the Leaky Cauldron. In nineteen goddamn fifty.

He sat up with a groan, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. He took a closer look around the room as he tried to ground his thoughts from panicking. The walls were painted a light grey colour and were void of any decoration. Aside from the bed, the room also held a small bedside table and an armchair with a coffee table. As he took a closer look, he noticed that there was a plate on the coffee table, with a note next to it.

Shakily getting out of the bed, Henry made his way to the armchair and picked up the note from the coffee table. The squiggly handwriting was barely legible, and Henry had to strain his eyes to actually be able to read it.

_You asked for the food to be taken up to the room, but you were already asleep by the time I did. I put a statis on it so it would keep fresh. Tom_

As soon as Henry read the note, his stomach let out a loud growl letting him know just how damn hungry he truly was. Taking a seat in the armchair, Henry took the plate on his lap and picked up one of the two sandwiches that laid on it. When the first bite hit his tongue, Henry let out a small moan of pleasure.

Merlin, it'd been so long since he had eaten.

He froze for a moment when he actually thought of how long it had been.

He had eaten a couple hours before he had performed the ritual that went awry, and it had been a good day and a half since then. It had been somewhere around late morning when he got his room at the Leaky Cauldron, and now it was early morning again.

Henry stood up and grabbed his wand from the bedside table before sitting back down in the armchair, taking another bite of his breakfast. He cast a Tempus, which let him know that he was right, it was just shy of seven in the morning.

Great, he had the whole day ahead of him. It would be perfect for his plans.

Greyclaw had let him know that his Lordship ring could serve as a portkey to his properties, he would just need to touch it and name whether he wanted to go to the townhouse or the cottage, and it would take him there.

Slowly making his way through his sandwich, Henry started planning his day.

He knew that he wanted to stay close to London and figure out what had gone wrong with his ritual, so he would prefer to stay in the townhouse, since it was in the heart of the city. However, he would probably need some research material, and it was dubious if the townhouse had a library. The cottage in the country was more likely to have one.

Henry decided that he would check out the townhouse after he finishes his breakfast, since for one that was closer, and for the other, it was currently a more preferable accommodation. He knew that since both houses had been abandoned for decades, so if there were no house elves keeping them clean, both of them would be quite messy and dirty, and would need a lot of work before they would be habitable again. He truly did not have time for that, but it seemed that the townhouse would be the one needing less work.

Nonetheless, he thought it would be a good idea to check both of them out, since he had no idea what resided on either of those properties.

Greyclaw had told him that the previous Lords Frost have mostly resided in the cottage, preferring the privacy that it provided to the convenience of the townhouse's location. Well, the privacy and the opulence of the building, or so the goblin had claimed.

Despite the circumstances, Henry was quite excited to explore the properties that were now under his ownership. He'd never had an ancestral home that didn't make him feel completely depressed, like the Black home at Grimmauld Place, or one that was completely destroyed, like the Potter cottage.

After the war, he couldn't set a foot in Sirius' old home without all the memories assaulting him immediately, resulting in a semi-serious panic attack. He had decided to seal it off for now and leave it alone until he could give it to his child, if he ever had one. That hadn't happened in his time yet, so the Black townhouse stood closed to the rest of the world.

Instead, Henry had bought a small, cosy house in Manchester. It only had one bedroom, but it was also equipped with a large basement area, which Henry made use of for his practise in blood runes.

Now, however, he actually owned two ancestral homes. Excitement buzzed in Henry's stomach as he finished both sandwiches.

He stood up, collected the papers with the ritual descriptions on them and the other ones from Gringotts, and made his way downstairs to the pub's main area, taking the now empty plate with him.

Spotting the barman at the reception area, Henry walked up to him.

"Good morning," the young wizard greeted the man.

"Mornin' lad. Slept well?" came the question.

"Yes," Henry answered him. "Thank you for the food," he stated, putting the empty plate down on the desk in between them.

"Don' worry 'bout it. You must'ave been p'etty tired, fallin' asleep like tha'," the man told Henry with an amused grin.

"Yes," Henry admitted with an embarrassed expression. "How much do I owe you?" he asked, wanting to pay as soon as possible so he could scout out the houses.

"T'll be twelve sickles, lad."

Taking out his money pouch, Henry handed over the amount. He quickly nodded goodbye and hurried to the back of the pub, where the entrance led to Diagon Alley. Instead of going out to the Alley, he pressed a finger to his newly claimed lordship ring.

"Frost townhouse," he whispered, and immediately felt the portkey's pull at his navel.

A fraction of a second later he fell on the floor with a quite ungraceful thud. He let out a couple coughs as his lungs were attacked by the dust that rose up from the ground by him falling down. After he could breathe properly again, Henry collected himself and stood up.

He was standing in what looked like an entrance hall. It was quite dusty, and the air smelled like the air had been stewing there for decades. Merlin knows, it probably had been.

The absolute first thing that Henry noticed was the wards. Well, rather the completely abysmal state that they were in. Letting out his magic to get a proper feel of it, he cringed as he felt just how bad the situation actually was. The layers were cracked and crumpled in most places, the remaining shards barely holding together by a thread. Their colours, which should have been shining brightly in various colours in their full state of power were now dull and grey, signalling that they probably hadn't been touched by magic in decades, at least. Henry had no idea when the former head of the House Frost had died, but he suspected that nobody had visited this place in at least thirty years, judging by the wards.

If he chose to live here, he would have to tear it all down before he did anything else and establish his own wards. His mind started running all the possible ways that he could destroy the current wards without any harm coming to the house. He also started to think which wards he would choose to use to protect his future home, be it the townhouse or the cottage.

He could use this as an opportunity to experiment, to try out the blood rune wards that he had invented but hadn't had the chance to publish or use yet.

Yes, it would be perfect.

Henry decided that he would have a lot more time to think about the wards later, and for now he would take a look around the house instead.

Looking behind himself, Henry found what looked like the main door to the house. He didn't want to open it, since he had no idea really where the house was exactly located, and he didn't want any prying muggle eyes to see into the house. He was sure that the muggles could see the house, after all the warding was almost non-existent. They must have deteriorated enough that they lost function at least two decades ago. It was quite disappointing, actually, since he had been hoping that there were some nice juicy ancestral wards that he would get his hands on to observe, but now all he had was crumbles.

Deciding that for now, he would only quickly look around the house, Henry observed the entrance hall. There were four doors opening from the door, each situated on one of the four sides of the room. The one behind him, he had already discovered to be the entrance, Henry tried the one on his left side.

Prying the heavy wooden door open, Henry arrived at a completely dark room. Whispering a quiet Lumos, the light revealed the room to be some kind of a storage room, or more like a walk-in closet for heavier outerwear, like winter cloaks and such. Walls were lined with well cut, expensive looking cloaks in all colours, suitable for any season. However, for now it did not interest Henry, who quickly left the room and instead tried the door on the opposite side of the room, to the right of the entrance.

It opened up to a staircase, one going upwards, one going down. Deciding to first look around the ground floor, Henry left the room for now, and opened the last door.

It led to a giant room, with a long, quite fancy looking dining table in the middle. The room had crystal chandeliers hanging from the high ceiling and was overall decorated quite opulently. One of the walls, in fact, was completely made out of beautifully cut glass, much like some windows of the muggle castles that Henry had visited in primary school. It had three doors opening on the right side, and one on the opposite side from where Henry was standing. Quickly opening the three doors to the right, Henry discovered them to be a guest bathroom, a small kitchen, assumedly for house elves, and the third one looked like a floo hall, with three fireplaces lining the wall. The fourth door of the dining hall led to a patio and a small back garden.

Keeping his Lumos up and walking back to the staircases, Henry decided to see what laid upstairs first. Making his way up, he arrived at a really small space with only one door on the left.

It led to what Henry thought was the master bedroom, with a giant bed, huge wardrobes that could hold an unimaginable amount of clothes, and a really comfortable looking couch. The wall behind the head of the bed was made out of the same glass as the dining room downstairs, and a door could also be found there, leading to the balcony right above the patio downstairs. Inside the bedroom, very similar crystal chandeliers were hanging from the ceiling as the ones in the dining hall. Overall, there were two doors leading from the room, not counting the balcony and the one that Henry had come through. He quickly discovered them to lead to a master bathroom and what looked like an office room, or study. The study's walls were hidden behind bookcases holding what looked like a couple thousand books, but still, it was not even close to the library that Henry had been hoping for.

Disappointed, Henry walked downstairs to the basement to see what he would find there. It was the stench that hit his nose first, and Henry struggled with his gag reflex to keep himself from throwing up immediately. Cancelling his Lumos for a second, he waved his wand, and with a muttered incantation, the stench was mostly gone. Continuing to walk down the stairs, Henry took a couple breaths of clean air, recast his Lumos, and hoped that the stench wasn't the effect of something sinister going on in the basement.

Right in front of the descending stairs stood what looked like a storage area, filled with empty vials, rotting ingredients and potions way past their expiration date. If Henry had to guess, he would identify these as the source of the disgusting smell that had permeated the air before. Deciding to leave those alone for now, he turned left where he found two doors. Cautiously peering inside one of them, he found a poorly equipped potions lab, and a surprisingly clean room that had nothing inside. It looked very similar to his own ritual room that he used quite frequently, so Henry guessed that probably this room served the same purpose.

Disappointed by the fact that he hadn't found a library, Henry closed both doors and made his way to the ground floor.

Deciding to hold off exploring in detail for now, Henry raised his left hand and touched the family ring on his finger.

"Frost cottage," he quietly said, and was immediately whisked away.

This time, he was not spat out inside the house, but rather in the gardens surrounding the cottage. From his experience at the townhouse, Henry had expected that the wards of the cottage would be in no better condition than what he had seen in the city, and his expectations had been correct.

Not wanting to waste time observing the wards, Henry looked around.

He was standing in the middle of the gardens which looked like they had been quite beautiful a long time ago, but now they were unkempt, littered with weed and overgrown shrubs, trees not taken care of, and flower beds destroyed by various aggressive plants. It was a sad sight, really.

However, the gardens were not Henry's concerns for now, and he chose to ignore it. At least he knew that he would be able to work on something he enjoyed, apart from the runes, if he couldn't figure out the solution to the ritual soon.

He entered the house carefully, lighting a Lumos even though he could see from the outside that the house had very large windows all around it.

The house itself weren't too big, Henry would have guessed that it was just a tad bigger than the townhouse. Looking around quickly, he discovered that it also had three floors, but the focus of the house seemed more on guests than actually permanently housing family. On the ground floor lay a pretty large hall with staircases leading to a half-floor, similar to what Henry had seen in muggle movies in the future. It looked like some sort of a ballroom but truly there weren't any decorations so Henry could only guess. On the upper floor Henry found a couple bedrooms equipped with bathrooms, but nothing so opulent and personal as the bedroom in the townhouse. They looked like they were for housing guests.

The basement held a giant kitchen and a very sizable wine cellar, but no lab or ritual room as the townhouse had.

It disappointed Henry quite a bit, since he would have loved to make the cottage his permanent residence, since it was quite far away from society so he would definitely not have had any trouble keeping away, preventing himself from altering the future.

Alas, since the cottage had no library either, it looked like he would have to stay deep in the heart of London, in the townhouse.

However, the lack of a library in either residences also meant another problem for him.

Research.

Now, Henry had absolutely no way of accessing the books that held extensive knowledge on his beloved research topic of blood runes. He sincerely doubted that any of the books that he had found in the townhouse had anything to do with the topic.

Henry sincerely hoped that he would be able to figure out what went wrong with the ritual by himself so that he wouldn't need access to any of those books.

He knew how he would be able to do it, but honestly, he had no wish to go through all the trouble.

The solution that was running through his mind was the ARM library.

Since there were many branches of runic magic that were quite illegal to practise unless you had a mastery in the subject, the Ministry of Magic set a deal with the Association of Rune Masters that any books on what they deemed was illegal magic could be held in the ARM library, with access granted only to those who were either working on their masteries or had already completed them.

Back in his own time, Henry had made great use of the library since it held all the research that had ever been done on any topics related to runes.

Honestly, the library was one of Henry's favourite places in the world.

However, there was a teeny tiny problem with getting to the library – Henry didn't have his mastery anymore.

To make his problems even more difficult, he knew that the fifties were about a decade before they eased the rules on who could start a mastery in Runes. Back in the twenty-first century, to be considered for a mastery, a student needed to achieve 90% or more on their Ancient Runes or Arithmancy NEWTs, so basically everybody who got Os in those subjects could apply for a mastery.

In the fifties, however, the expectations were higher, since only those 95% and up could even apply, and definitely not all who applied were accepted.

This led to what Henry really did not want to think about. In order to be granted access to the ARM library, Henry needed to redo all of his exams, OWLs and NEWTs, and his application project as well. Not that he was worried about passing any of those, the main reason of his worries was time.

The longer he stayed in the past, the higher chance there was that he would accidentally change something.

However, Henry hoped that he would be able to figure out what he had messed up with the ritual by himself and send himself back to his own time without changing anything. He didn't have to worry about any of that.

For now, Henry had nothing to do at the cottage, so with a couple whispered words, Henry found himself back in the townhouse.

Looking around, he noticed once again just how filthy everything was. It was truly awful.

He knew that before he could start working on reversing the ritual, he would have to make the house somewhat habitable again.

Before he started anything, Henry had a sudden idea. It was quite inconvenient to have to rely on a portkey to travel all the time, and he knew that frequent exposure to portkeys had quite a detrimental effect on one's magic. He really should get his apparation licence at the ministry.

Yes, he should do that.

He turned around to head outside when he saw a flicker of his reflection in the dirty mirror that was hanging on the wall.

No, there was absolutely no way he was dressed acceptably enough to go to the ministry.

He was still wearing his clothes from his own time, as dirty as they were. Henry wrinkled his nose as he inspected his clothing more closely and noticed just how much filth had stuck to it in the time he'd been wearing it, which admittedly was quite long.

It wasn't just the dirt that would have been frowned upon though. While the clothes were definitely wizarding and not muggle, they looked terribly out of fashion in this era, he was quite aware of that. In order to rectify that, he would first need to acquire some new clothing, properly cut and clean before he could go to the Ministry to take the apparation examination.

With a sigh Henry cancelled his Lumos and flicked his wand at himself. In a second, his clothing was once again clean, and with a second flick and a muttered incantation, his whole body was clean and refreshed, as if he had taken a long shower.

Oh, how he longed for a really hot bath. He really needed one to relax his body as he had been running himself down in stress after the happenings of the past couple days. Henry knew though that he needed to keep himself busy.

The busier he was, the less he would be able to think about his family that he had left so abruptly behind, that he might never see them again.

He might never see them again.

He might never see little precious Teddy again, or any of the Weasleys or Hermione or….

No.

Henry pushed down those feelings that suddenly overwhelmed him.

He would not give up hope. He would fix all of this, and then he would hug his baby Teddy very tightly when he got home.

For now, though, he would keep busy.

With that, Henry apparated to the Leaky Cauldron, once again hoping that the remnants of the wards around the house would be enough to shield him from the aurors and that he would get away with his as of yet illegal apparation.

Making sure that he had his money pouch on him, Henry made his way towards a store he knew all too well.

Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions.

It had been such a long time since he had visited the store. In fact, it had been before the war ended, since the building ended up destroyed in an attack on the Alley. He remembered Madam Malkin being one of the many casualties of that day.

Pushing he grim thoughts aside again, Henry entered the store. The familiar ringing of the bells signalling his entrance almost brought tears to his eyes, as did Madam Malkin, who came out of the back room of the store, looking so young and worriless, smiling at him without any knowledge of the terrible things to come.

"Good afternoon sir, how may I help?" she asked, kind eyes sparkling with life. Not dull and glassy, as he had last seen them.

Alive.

She was alive.

"I would like three sets of everyday robes, please," he told her. "Complete set with everything needed, please."

She nodded, led him to a stool to stand on and went to work.

He still had to come to terms with that. She was alive.

As were so many others.

He could save them all.

He should save them all.

He had the opportunity to do so after all, so why shouldn't he?

No.

He was not here to play god. He had no right to do that.

After all, maybe something that he did could result in some people not being born, maybe even him not being born! That was absolutely unacceptable.

This was not the time for him to be selfless. He had to be selfish. He had to protect the future at all costs.

"Sir?" the young seamstress' voice disrupted his thoughts.

"Excuse me, I was lost in thought," he admitted, embarrassed. "Can I help you with something?"

"No need to worry sir, I was just asking what material you would like for your robes to be," she repeated herself, not looking at him but still busy taking his measurements.

Henry took a moment to think about it. He didn't know anything about fabrics, to be honest. He had no idea what types where in fashion now, what would suit the weather, what would classify him as poor and such.

"I must admit I am not very educated on the topic. I need something elegant that is also suitable for the weather," he told her. Madam Malkin nodded and went to the back room to work on his clothes.

He knew that she wouldn't take much time, definitely not more than ten minutes, as she had always been a fast worker.

Henry was proven right when Madam Malkin reappeared after a short time, his order neatly wrapped in a couple of bags.

"May I put one of them on immediately?" Henry asked.

Raising an eyebrow but choosing not to comment on his request, she pointed to the corner of the small shop where a corner was hidden behind sets of heavy curtains.

Henry thanked her quietly and disappeared behind the curtains.

They must have had a silencing charm on them because as soon as he closed them, he could no longer hear the noises from the busy Alley. It was a nice day, so of course people decided to have a nice time socialising.

Henry took out a set of robes from one of the bags and after taking his current clothing off, he tried to put it on. The trousers and shirt were quite similar to what he was used to, but the robes had a completely different cut to them. It took him a couple minutes to figure out how to put them on, and when he managed to dress himself correctly, he looked in the mirror and marvelled at Madam Malkin's expertise.

The robes fit him perfectly, accentuating his figure quite well. The material was quite soft, but it looked the part, making him look like he had dressed to impress. Henry was very pleased with it overall.

Exiting the small makeshift dressing room, Henry quickly paid Madam Malkin the appropriate amount. He was surprised how cheap the final price came out to be, since the robes produced in her shop were notoriously well tailored.

He shrunk down his remaining packages, now filled with new robes and his clothes from the future, and he exited the shop.

The Alley was bustling with life. The shops were all quite busy as people were walking around window-shopping or actually purchasing items, but nonetheless there were quite a lot of people. It was quite nice to see. Henry was not used to seeing this many people around, since even after the war had ended people were weary of going to the Alley when they thought it would be busy. Some engrained habits were hard to get rid of, and after almost thirty years of living on the edge, it was understandable why people started avoiding large, vulnerable crowds.

Distracted by his thoughts, Henry didn't notice that he was about to run into someone until it was too late.

Colliding with the other person, Henry lost his balance as he hadn't expected the impact. He was close to falling to the ground when his arm was grabbed by the other person and he was pulled upright, another hand coming to the small of his back to stabilise him.

It was the magic that he noticed first. The seductive darkness that enveloped him almost instantly, sending shivers down his spine.

It was so powerful, twirling around them, dancing and feeling up his own magic. Once Henry realised what it was doing, he shut off his own magic immediately, drawing it all back to his core so that the other, if he could, wouldn't be able to feel it.

"Oh Merlin, I'm so sorry," he apologised immediately, realising his fault in the situation.

He looked up to the wizard holding him steady and let out a shocked gasp.

Red eyes.

Bloody ruby red eyes staring at him, crinkled with amusement.

The face was familiar as well.

Voldemort.

Tom Riddle.

He had managed to run into Tom bloody Riddle, on his second damn day in the past.

Damn his Potter luck.

"No need to worry, no harm done," the evil bastard replied with a smooth voice.

Henry couldn't stand to be in his presence a moment longer.

"Excuse me," he said, and stepping out of the wizard's hold Henry almost ran to the Leaky Cauldron.

Well, it was not a run, it was a hurried walk.

A graceful, elegant stride.

Definitely not a run.

Out of breath, Henry arrived at the Leaky Cauldron. He had been planning on stopping to eat some lunch before he went to the Ministry to take his exam but now that he knew that fucking Voldemort was out there strolling the Alley, he was definitely not going to do that.

Fuck.

Voldemort was out and about.

Going about his day, shopping, murdering people and torturing others.

Damn it.

Henry sincerely hoped that this small meeting between them didn't change anything in the future.

Oh, how he wished that he could change it though. Prevent all the deaths and suffering. People wouldn't need to fear anymore. They wouldn't lose so many loved ones to the wars.

However, Henry knew that he couldn't allow himself to do that.

He had no right to change the future.

All he would do was figure out a way to bring himself back, and then he would continue to live his live.

What life, a treacherous voice in his head asked him.

It didn't matter what life, but he would not change the past.

Determined to finish his business quickly, Henry hurried to the fireplace that would take him to the Ministry.

Taking a handful of the floo powder, Harry clearly said "Ministry of Magic".

Before he was swallowed by the green flames, his eyes met ruby red ones staring right back at him.


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER 10 IS NOW UP ON AO3!

Just a little notification that this story is not abandoned.

This website annoys the hell out of me because there is a problem with the uploads literally every single time. Regular updates can be found on AO3 and as of chapter 10, the story is at 47k words. If you somehow found this here, you are welcome to continue it over there but I will not be posting new chapters on this page.


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